Borosage: Feel the Bern: Sanders and the Power of Grassroots Fundraising

[eridani]

http://www.commondreams.org/views/2015/09/28/feel-bern-sanders-and-power-grassroots-fundraising

The Washington Post on Saturday reported that Hillary Clinton has launched “an intense press to stockpile campaign dollars in the final days of the quarter, aiming to build a war chest big enough to eclipse what is expected to be a healthy fundraising haul by Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont.”

Say what? The Clinton campaign is pressing to match Bernie’s grassroots fund-raising totals? Sanders has surged to a stunning lead in the early polls in New Hampshire and is continuing to gain in Iowa. Clinton has suffered a terrible summer, with polls registering growing disapproval.

Now Sanders may demonstrate that, in the new age of social media, it is possible to raise enough money from small donations largely over the Web to be competitive in a presidential race. Hillary raised a record $46 million in the last quarter (the first reporting period since her announcement), with 16.8 percent coming from donations of $200 or less. Bernie raised $15.2 million, more than any Republican contender, with 68 percent from donations of $200 or less. Now his totals are forcing the Clinton campaign to react.

The Clinton push, as the Post reports, featured five fundraising parties in and just outside of New York City on Thursday and Friday, “including one at the home of the wealthy corporate take-over chieftain who was a model for the Wall Street procedural ‘Barbarians at the Gate.'”

Hedge-fund millionaire Cliff Robbins hosted a Friday evening event in Greenwich, Conn. Robbins runs the hedge fund Blue Harbor Group, and has made a fortune in junk bonds and hostile takeovers. He earned notoriety as architect of the $30 billion leveraged buyout of RJR Nabisco in 1988 that was the basis of the best-selling book and HBO movie, “Barbarians at the Gate: The Fall of RJR Nabisco.”

[dae]

1. K&R. Thanks for posting. N/t

[Erich Bloodaxe BSN]

2. I love it when Hillary works hard to reinforce her image as the 'money candidate' in an election

cycle in which one of the main themes in the corrupting nature of money on politics and the way the wealthy control politics.